Trump Appoints New Judge

Thursday 28 June 2018

The election of a new conservative Supreme Court judge in the United States may be of great importance to a number of major issues.

The US Supreme Court judge Anthony Kennedy announced Wednesday night that he retires by the end of July. He met on Wednesday President Donald Trump in the White House, where he informed the president of his decision.

Kennedy was appointed to the Supreme Court of Republican President Ronald Reagan in 1987. Now Trump is able to appoint his second judge – and thus he can put his mark on the court for a long time to come.

Strife Cases

These are some of the issues that may be affected by the selection:

Abortion

During the election campaign, Donald Trump promised to appoint abortionists to the Supreme Court. Now he has the opportunity to replace Kennedy with a judge who can help make dramatic changes in the United States abortion laws. The Supreme Court is today divided in the midst of this question, and the new judge may therefore have a decisive influence on the outcome of new matters, writes the Politico website.

The court will be able to decide when an abortion can be completed during pregnancy, but also the restrictions that the states may introduce.

Homosexual rights

Kennedy has long been known as the strongest defender of gay rights among the Supreme Court judges. Several times his voice has been crucial, among other things when the United States Supreme Court with five to four votes in 2015 decided that similar marriage would be allowed in all 50 states of the country.

Now the gay organizations fear a setback.

“We regret that a judge who has fought for the decent treatment of gay people chooses this time to hang away, thus giving the Trump administration the opportunity to undermine the laws to protect against discrimination,” said Rachel Tiven in the Lambda Legal organization to Politico .

Death penalty

Kennedy has not provided any signals that he has been prepared to declare the death penalty in violation of the Constitution. Nevertheless, he has repeatedly appeared as the only Republican judge who believes that the Constitution sets clear limits on the implementation of the death penalty. In 2005, his vote was crucial when the Supreme Court decided that people under the age of 18 can not be convicted of such a punishment.

The opponents of the death penalty fear that fewer death sentences who get their case processed by the Supreme Court will get through.

Associate Professor at Bjørknes College, Hilde Restad, believes the appointment of a new judge will be of great importance, and emphasizes that the election will mobilize voters both on the right and left sides.

– If the Republicans are not approved Kennedys replaces before the middle of November, both sides have a very good reason to meet in polling stations: to control the Senate where the judge is to be approved. The left side has been ready for battle since November 2016, but now all Christian conservatives on the right side will also have an incentive to meet up, says Restad to VG.Has a list ready

Trump announced Wednesday night that the work of appointing Kennedy’s successor will begin “immediately”. The president already has a list of over 20 candidates ready, the same list used as a starting point before last year’s appointment of Neil Gorsuch.

The question is now whether the Senate will be convened to vote on a nomination before the middle of November, where there are 33 seats of the Senate’s 100 seats.

The republican leader of the Senate, Mitch McConnell, said Wednesday night that the Senate is prepared to vote for a nomination already in August. Democrat Senate leader, Chuck Schumer, said on his side that it had been “the top of hypocrisy” to vote before the middle election.